Digital Wellbeing at Work

Speaker A: Foreign. Hello everyone, and, um, welcome back to the Tap Talks HR Podcast. The podcast is everything about people in the workplace. Today on the podcast, I'm looking forward to talking to Petra Velzebor, author, psychotherapist and culture consultant about digital well being. Hi, Petra. Welcome to the Tap Talks HR Podcast.

Speaker B: Hey, thanks for having me.

Speaker A: No worries. So I think this is a hot topic at the moment. In many people's lives, we hear about the effect of excessive use of social media and the potential impact on children. And I was thinking, for adults, one of our biggest exposures to the digital world is the workplace. So first question for me to get us going is, what drew you to this topic and why is it important to you?

Speaker B: Well, um, big question. I mean, it's a big topic, right? I'm a parent, I'm a workplace consultant. Um, and I'm also, uh, an, um, alcohol addicted addict who's in recovery for the last 16 years. So addiction was an interesting kind of angle for me to think about. And then my background is youth mental health. So seeing youth, young people struggling and the conversations around that just made me want to zoom out and think, okay, is this affecting workplace wellbeing? Is it affecting focus? We're distracted. You know, we're talking about all these wellbeing tools and tips, but are they even possible when we're in this kind of frazzled state with our digital habits? So it felt like the steps that needed to be addressed before thinking, go have a workout and go have a bubble bath and all these nice things people say about, you know, how we invest in ourselves. But it's like, can we even do them if we're doom scrolling and not sleeping well? Because all of our lives are affected? So I really wanted to research the topic and think about practical tools. So not like, oh, the system's messed up and there's nothing we can do about it, but what are the tiny things that we can do as individuals, but also as teams to manage the situation better?

Speaker A: Fantastic. And I can see people don't see the video when we're doing these, uh, podcast recordings. But behind you is a bookshelf, and on the bookshelf there are books with your name on it. So you obviously the author as well, and you got to the point where it was last year you released the book on digital well being. But that's not your first book, is it?

Speaker B: It's not. And it's incredible to actually say that because my, my first book was about mental health in the workplace. It's called Begin with you how to invest in your, your well being and mental satisfaction at work. And it's got a bit of my crazy story in it. I was born in an extremist religious culture. So um, the idea of like what toxic cultures are like, you know, and what um, communal living, uh, you know, I didn't go to school when I was younger. Um, we thought the world was gonna end, you know, all this kind of context. And so all of that impacted my ability to first of all want to learn. Because when you, when you're a nerd like me and you don't get to go to school, like it's actually a real intense thing. I used to like sneak books and like I have a sneaky library card and you know, this is me being a rebel is like trying to sneak in so that I could learn. But there was a part of me when I was younger that just wanted to write and uh, communicate ideas. And it's how I learned and was able to be seen. And so my first book's got a bit of my crazy story in it. And how did I learn to I guess look after my own mental health in order to survive in the real world, having left that environment, get an education. And then I thought, huh, huh. There's some real principles that I've learned to move from rock bottom into building my own business and the things I do, how can I share that with others? So that's the first book and then the second book was kind of serendipitous because my, my publisher was like, we think you're the right person to write on this topic. What do you think? It was more collaborative and I feel very privileged uh, to have a second book kind uh, of opportunity on a topic that really matters to me.

Speaker A: Fantastic. So let's get stuck into the concept of digital well being. It's people are more connected than ever, yet people seem to feel more overwhelmed than ever. And what's actually happening to us as humans and to our attention, Isn't it incredible?

Speaker B: Like we're the statistics of that, that we're lonelier than ever. And you're right, we're more hyper connected. You can have followers, you can have connections, you can be having uh, online meetings, you can be texting multiple people at once. You could be on dating apps. Like there's so many things that can keep us connected and yet we're more isolated and attention is one thing. So um, I think what we're doing is we are, without realizing it, avoiding our own emotional state. So when our body is telling Us. Uh, you're tired, you're exhausted, you need movement, you need connection, you need touch, you need food. Like whatever the things are, it's like we can override it for this little hit of dopamine. So if I can just scroll and watch somebody else's food, you know, I don't have to cook because that's what people do, right? They're like, oh, what nice recipes. And then they eat fast food or they that get deliveroo or whatever, you know, just to uh, keep that dopamine hit going. So dopamine is that happy hormone in our brain that makes us feel like, oh, I feel good, right? But it's kind of a pseudo hit because it's not the real serotonin boost that we get from being in community and you know, connecting with other people. It's that little hit and it's super highly addictive, right? And so if I can avoid, you know, a conversation that might be difficult with my spouse or my child for example, but instead we can both, you know, we can all be on the sofa with the TV on and our screens in the evening, uh, and texting our teenagers upstairs. This is like the world, uh, of our personal lives. And as much as I know your audience is about workplace, you know, it starts the title of my first book is Begin with youh because it starts with us in our home, in our personal lives and the responsibility we're willing to take for our own well being. And then that cascades into the workplace where I know we're worried about AI. We've got a million messages going on at once. We're in, um, meeting overwhelm. I mean the whole world of work needs some structural, uh, shifts. But the core piece is addiction, uh, avoidance. Dopamine hits and then the knock on effect is we need more of it to get the dopamine hit right? Just like in other types of addiction, eventually it doesn't work as well. And then we're shopping, we're scrolling, we're swiping, we're doing all the things, but then we're not sleeping well. We don't know how to connect when we have the opportunity to. So we're now with people and we're like, oh, eye contact. Oh my God. Right? And that's what I'm seeing is like this, um, this unlearning or for our younger generation maybe never learning how to just interact in ways that aren't small talk that like go to, to some kind of depth. So anyway, I wrote a whole book on this. So you can tell I have a lot to say. Uh, but that's just some of the things I would, uh, would consider to start with.

Speaker A: And that's really interesting because like something that, I mean, we both work in London, uh, and uh, something that bugs me more than ever is as I'm walking down the street, there are people who are looking at their phones and they won't look up. And it's down to me who's not looking at my phone to steer around people.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I think when you're in a city of such vibrancy like London, and there's so going on around you, it's got to be something really big that's getting your attention onto this little 2 inch by 4 inch little screen. So what you're saying here, it's not necessarily the content, it's literally just the short, sharp interaction you have with it. And is this why things like TikTok have really taken off? Because actually it's that 15 second bang, bang, bang.

Speaker B: I mean, let's put it into context. Billions of pounds and dollars is being spent to compete for our attention and to advertise to us, you know, so what chance has the little guy got right when, um, there's so much that's, you know, science backed, that is like, um, colors, noise, sounds short, you know, like intrigue. And what was interesting in the research in my book is that bad news travels six times faster than good news. So for many of us, uh, yeah, I had no idea. I was like, am I allowed to swear? I was like, holy shit, there's a lot of bad news out there. And we're all thinking the world is, you know, and of course the context of the world is intense, but when the clickbait and outrage news is the thing that gets us clicking, well then the influence that we're getting is like, oh my God. Right? And so our nervous system is fired up in fight or flight mode, which is really having this knock on effect on being able to handle conflict, being able to communicate well, because if you're in survival, you only think about yourself because you're thinking, if I don't survive, nobody else will. Right? And so this is one of the things that's going on that to your point, we might be just staring at our devices while we're walking because we just think, I've got to finish looking at this terrible thing. Just like, you know, when you drive on the road and like your side of the road is absolutely fine, but there's been a car crash or something on the other side and you're like, what's the traffic about? And it's because everyone's slowing down to look, right? And it's a similar thing. It's like you can't not, you can't not look, you can't unsee. So again, we're up against it with billions of dollars being spent to compete for our attention. So things like TikTok, things like YouTube shorts, whatever it is, there's a formula now. It's the hook, the drama and then keep you on as long as possible. And then once you're on, I don't know about you, but if I'm feeling more stressed or a little bit unwell or a little bit overwhelmed, I'm more likely to spend an evening just swiping through some stuff. And my algorithms start changing as well very quickly from what it usually is, which is like personal development, weight training, like food, like stuff that's like, oh, let me influence myself in healthy ways really quickly into darker stuff. Right. I mean, I don't know what your, your main social media channel is and what your algorithms show you, but everyone's is different. It's incredible. Actually.

Speaker A: It is interesting. I try and minimize myself and keep myself to LinkedIn, um, not because I particularly like LinkedIn, but it's the world business and before you know it, you can fill your life with just that one platform. Um, but it, it does it very quickly react. If I'm looking at a new topic, you'll see it react. So it's really interesting how it pulls you in to. If I think back pre mobile phones, because I am that old when they used to have buttons and things like that, um, then it used to be like the gossip on the street corner or the guy in the corner of the pub who used to always have the moan and groan or the sensationalism and you used to be attracted to that, didn't you? So what we're saying is the way social media works is tapped into that aspect of what always been there in human behavior and is amplifying it to the point where according to your research and your book is tipping over now into being not good for our own well being.

Speaker B: Well, it's just uh, times 100,000, right? As far as how quickly you can be activated and be put into a fight or flight state, looking at something that's on the other side of the world when actually your day to day life might be incredibly safe. You might have people that you trust, you might have day to day opportunities where you can do good Work and connect. Um, and then in the workplace it's affecting Productivity and high performance are the buzzwords these days. Like how do we get our teams to perform at their best and do their thing? But um, since COVID meeting culture is like incredible. Like, if we were to look into the future and go there will become a world where your workday is in back to back meetings. Talking about, usually like, you don't need to all be on the meeting. Somebody did an equation once to think about how much a meeting costs when you have, I don't know, 10 people on the meeting and just doing that salary times that hour that they're spending times the entire day. And it's like, is this what productivity is? We, you know, every time we get distracted, I think it's, uh, it's 23 minutes where you have the option to get back into a flow state where you can actually do great kind of deep work. And then you get another distraction and another distraction. And so we're talking about high performance, but it's like we've got to talk about the distractions in the way that we're working. That is not helping us perform at our best. And then worse than that, affecting burnout and people leaving and all the things. But um, this is like, ah, not only crucial for our workplaces, it's crucial for our young people. I mean the, the ripple effect of this is huge. Right? Um, what are you seeing when it comes to workplaces? Because I know that's what you're tapped into as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's really interesting. I was just thinking, uh, I run a roundtable for chief people officers around wellbeing. And actually we got to a point in the conversation recently where they were just saying they're, uh, overwhelmed, there's not enough hours in the day. And we started talking about, well, one of the drivers was ad hoc stuff. And ad hoc stuff is like about 40 or 50% of their day. They reckon, like they walk in in the morning, 40, 50, they don't know he's going to turn up. So I said, so obviously then you hold back 40 to 50% of your diary and you don't attend meetings for that. So, you know, you've got the space for the ad hoc stuff. And they say, no, no, our calendars are full of meetings. And then. Well, I said, well, you're losing before you even start work because. And it's, it's that thing that you fill a calendar, uh, with Microsoft Teams meetings because it's so well designed to fill your calendar, uh, and schedule things for an hour when they probably only need to be 20 minutes if you really pushed it and everything. I just really do things almost like the tail of the technology dog is doing the wagging. So it's the tail wagging the dog and the technology sometimes is creating the behavior for the organization rather than thinking what's the best behavior in the organization to deliver results. Um, and I think that's one way I've seen technology really move forward. And as you say, since the pandemic, when technology ramped forward really fast, um, and the likes of, uh, things that should have been around by 2030 suddenly turned up by 2021 because we had to move into the very dispersed world we're in, I think, um, yeah, we've seen really tough times now, but we're in 2026 now.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I say that because someone might be listening to this podcast in 10 years time who can tell? And. But technology is here. Technology is everywhere. So in your book you say digital well being isn't about quitting technology. So what does healthy tech use actually look like?

Speaker B: So one of the definitions of digital well being is when technology supports our intentions. And so, um, for example, your intention might be, for me, my siblings all live in different countries, my kids are now at university in different places. Um, and I have a fully remote team. So when tech is supporting my intentions, I can work from anywhere. I can video call my daughter who's up in Manchester. Um, I can stay connected to siblings for free. Like, do you remember when a call to another place costs you money? Right? And you'd be like, oh, we can only have a short call because it costs. It's costing me £5aminute or whatever it was, Right? And so when tech is supporting my intentions, I've got a gym app, I've got a meditation app. You know, there's ways that I connect to people in that are deep and meaningful through my technology. So the question to ask yourself, is my tech supporting my intentions? But do, first of all, do I know what my intentions are? Because when you're in a cycle of like just the rat race, right, you're not even thinking about your intentions. You're thinking about firefighting. What's the next right thing I have to do? You're just go, go, go without pausing. And so when, if you're going to get technology to support your intentions, you have to create these micro pauses. It could be a digital detox, but it certainly could be as simple as if you're walking, if you have a Commute of any kind, or if you work from home, if you go outside and you go somewhere, don't listen to a podcast. I know we want people to listen to this one, but get the influence out of your ears for five effing minutes, right? Turn the music off. And the reason I say that is because we've lost the art of daydreaming, of connecting. Our brain needs time to connect all the dots of all the things that have happened. So then we can go, huh, huh, what was useful? What was less useful? What am I going to do moving forward? So a great tactic around this is create micro pauses or on a weekend, um, you know, get away from your device for an hour for half a day. I know some people are going to say I've got to be on call for whatever, but my question is, do you, do you? And if you do, are there ways that you can set things up so that you can still be accessible? Like my kids? Um, the ringtone on my phone is different if my kids text me than if anyone else does. And so I want to be reachable for them, but I can turn everything else off. So whatever the thing is, what are your intentions? You need some space to think about that. And that's in your personal life, like connection and meaning and how you give back or whatever it is. And then that's your work life. What's our intention? How are we actually the most efficient? Have we even talked about that? Like how do we work, not just what we do? Um, and so once you set your intentions, you can go, is my tech supporting those intentions or is it taking away and doom scrolling till two in the morning when you've got a pitch meeting the next day is not supporting your intentions. Right, so these are the types of questions we've got to ask ourselves in order to make sure that we achieve digital well being. While tech is always going to be here, we're discussing AI. The world's not changing, it's moving faster. So we've just got to ask ourselves the right questions.

Speaker A: I think that's really interesting, the bit about those micro pauses as you call them. It's something in my world, uh, we've seen, ah, an impact where people aren't commuting to work as much because they're commuting maybe one or two days a week. They're working from home more so that being able to reset from almost like a work brain into a home brain needs time to happen, is crossing the border. But if, if we're doom scrolling if we're just always on. We don't take that moment to even just do that. I can then see that actually there's a lot of other issues. And I know some people who are great professionals who say their biggest challenge is they can't sleep at night because they've got so much going around in their head. That as much as we know, part of sleep is actually compartmentalizing everything that happens. If you've got too much in your head, you haven't had those micro pauses during the. You're asking too much of your brain. Look, uh, find all this. You got a thousand pieces of paper to file, and you've got 28 minutes to do it, and it's not going to happen. So it's. Again, we're setting ourselves up to fail, it sounds like, right from the start.

Speaker B: Well, and you hit on a good point, which is if you do work from home, you need to create those buffers between work and life. And the best type of buffer is one that includes physical movement. And so a simple walk around your block, um, a stretch in your living room, uh, going to the gym, um, some yoga class. Like, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. But when we look at the, um, research on burnout, the single best way to release stress from your body is physical movement. There are other ways. Um, tears, laughter, anything that acts as some kind of release, uh, connection. The dopamine that we get from physical contact, which could be a human, it could be a pet. Um, you know, these are the types of things that help us regulate our nervous system. So a micropause, you've got to think, is this regulating my nervous system? So bringing me out of fight or flight into, um, what we call, um, social engagement. That level, the green zone. And so it could be simple. A breath exercise that takes you into that place. It could be a movement. And for some people, if you're a ninja at this, it can be just 2 minutes, 3 minutes. If you're not a ninja, then just doing a pause, but being like, um, in a freeze state going, okay, I'm pausing, but I'm counting. And you're not necessarily getting into that emotion regulation state. You're just forcing a pause in a fireflight zone. And so whatever that is for you, it's not about. This is an exact formula, but it's about, um, experimenting and learning again to listen to your body. So if sleep is an issue, you've got to think about the buffer in the evening more than I do, because sleep for me is pretty good. You know, um, I Need to think about my buffer in the middle of the day. I need to find movement because the stress can build up and feel like anxiety. So everyone's a little bit different. But learn to listen to your body and people are very terrible at it. And one other point, um, we're talking about doom scrolling and some people might say, well I don't watch the news or I'm not watching the, that's not my thing. You can, you can doom scroll by just watching, well, being influencers on repeat on 15 second clips over and over and over and over again. Like that can still bring your body into, oh, I'm not good enough. I need to do this thing. Uh, you know, so just get radically honest with yourself.

Speaker A: Yeah. And this stuff's been kicking around for forever, hasn't it? We talk about, um, oh, we need to find ways of taking these micro pauses. We need to find ways of breaking the cycle. I remember um, delivering um, internally in an organization. We were doing a internal coaching program. So we're training people up to be coaches for our uh, upcoming talent. And I had a great external coach who used to come in and facilitate the session. And she used to start every session with. We'd sit um, on our chairs, hands on our knees, close our eyes and she would talk us through this two or three minutes of centering ourselves. So we were 100% present to then be a great coach. And this was 2010 off the top of my head. So 16 years ago. So we're not saying about. There's these radical new methods of actually taking these micropauses. This is stuff that's been out there for ages. It's down to us to actually break the cycle. From the sounds of it, it's just

Speaker B: harder to do these days. But you're right, the basics, the, the stuff that was out there is the same stuff. Our bodies are the same. We need nutrition, we need sleep, we need exercise, we need, you know, these are the, we need connection, we need sunshine. Like those are literally the basics that haven't changed. Um, but it's harder to do them. And we are sitting more than ever. We are living alone, we are more isolated. Maybe you don't live near family where it's globalization. We're moving around. So the context and the cultures that we're in have shifted. So those basics absolutely are still the things. We don't have to get very complicated about it. But just think if you're in a queue to get coffee and you order your coffee, you have no eye contact with the barista and then you stare at your phone while you're waiting for the coffee. You have nothing to look at, but you're just doing it because of the discomfort of human connection. And so for me, a silly little thing that feels like something I practice daily is I talk to a stranger. And for some people, it's like, who? Right? So if someone makes me coffee or. The other day, I was at an off site with. With a law firm, and there was this beautiful woman who was serving us, you know, day in and day out, and she had a name tag, and I just said, oh, how do you say your name? I ended up learning a bit about her life story. Um, she was. It was just a beautiful connection that was just with. With a stranger. And I did. And it sounds like, oh, you're trying to be a good person. Not really. I'm trying to keep the practice up, uh, of connection. And so every single day, yesterday I talked to a stranger. I'll talk to the person that makes me coffee because it keeps me in the habit. So when the stakes are higher, my team, a friendship, difficult conversation. I've got the practice in, I've put the reps in. It's not like I'm staring at my device constantly. Don't get me wrong, the addiction is real for me as well. Right. Um, but you've got to practice those little things so that when the stakes are higher, you're used to it.

Speaker A: So what if you had top three things that we could do as humans to try and break the cycle? What would you say those top three things were?

Speaker B: Um, so I would say practice connection. What? I was just saying. So how do you practice connection? Um, create time for reflection. That could be weekly, that could be daily, that could be monthly. The length of time. It could be journaling, it could be silence, meditation, whatever. Create time for reflection. And, um, get really honest about your digital habits. Like, really honest. Because it's funny when I'm in a group and I say, um, you know, uh, what would the two closest people in your life say your relationship to your device is like? So it's like not what you think. It's like what your feedback loop is. And everyone just shuffles uncomfortably because they're like, oh. And then if you ask them in that way, they're like. They would say, I'm addicted. But it's interesting that in a partnership, for example, one spouse says, the other person's always on their phone, they're so addicted, and the other person's saying the exact same thing. So I'm like, okay, people, you know, something's gotta give. So what I mean is get a feedback loop. Look at you. I don't know about you, but you get that number on your phone that says your average use of your phone, your phone is. And then I don't know about you, but I kind of go, whoa. And then I start to rationalize it in my brain and I go, I've got a gym app. I've got meditation. It's like my. This, my podcast, whatever. Like, I just remember all the healthy things. And of course, when you break it down, it's like social media, right? It's like the highest thing. So, like, we bullshit ourselves all the time. And so we need feedback loops. And so that third one is get radical honest about your habits, because if you don't know what the problem is, you're not going to be able to figure out the solution. Solution.

Speaker A: And I think that's where it really comes back to the fact it is an addiction, isn't it? Because, uh, when you were saying that you've got to be honest with yourself, I think that's step one for Alcoholics Anonymous, isn't it? No, it is.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Is. So. So it's.

Speaker B: You have a problem. Is this first step. Yeah.

Speaker A: Okay, so I'm, um, listening to all the listeners now. I want you to take a moment and admit you've got a problem, because we all have. So, I mean, we're moving on in the time of, uh, our podcast quite quickly here. But I want to ask you a couple of things around how this might really translate itself into the work arena. And one of those things is thinking about teams and how team performance is affected. So how do you think that digital overload might be affecting team performance at work?

Speaker B: I mean, hugely. So, like I said, it takes 23 minutes to get back into flow meeting, um, culture. Um, uh, even how we measure productivity is just a little bit, um, interesting when we talk about what we refer to as knowledge workers. So people who sit at their computers and think about things and create output. And so we've traditionally measured it on hours in the office or hours at work, nine to five or eight to six or whatever it is. And that's not really a measure of quality performance anymore because you can, you know, people have the wiggle your mouse and show as if you're working and busyness for the sake of it without actually doing work. So there's something, if we look to the future, where we have got to learn to measure output differently. And so it's Less about busyness and more about actual performance. Um, and then we're in this messy middle with AI, right? So we're um, working in this old school way, so meeting culture, all these types of things. But now we also have to learn about AI or risk our jobs. So there's this fear about like, okay, let me practice the AI thing. It's worth also saying that people's jobs are different. You talked about the HR people. They're still going to have 40, 50% of their time be firefighting. That's part of their job, right? So in your context, whatever your context is, what can you individually do? What's in your control as far as mapping out your schedule in a way that has time blocks, that communicates to your team when you have to do deep work versus when you're on call, like whatever it is, everyone's role is going to be different. But think individually about what's in your control. And then we can't just think individually about this. We have to think as a team. How do we communicate with each other so that we can. Because a high performing team think, um, an elite sports team or the military or. The context of course is different. But the um, inputs are that there's a clear mission, there's clear uh, roles, there's clear communication strategies and everybody knows where they stand. Now this doesn't always happen in corporate culture, but we need to learn from some of that in order to make as much clarity as possible and to really discuss how we work, not just what we do. And that's what people are missing. So with my team it's like I'm a morning person. It's very annoying to some of my people who are like afternoon people. Um, but we're just like, when do you work at your best? How can, how do I know? How do I support you? Just because I'm working early doesn't mean I'm expecting you to. We need to have this explicit conversation. So again, think about your individual habits, but collectively think about this as a team as well.

Speaker A: And I think that's interesting, isn't it? Because when we say wellbeing, we immediately think about social, um, media and the effect that that has. But actually technology, I mean we are using um, video technology right now to do this podcast. When I started doing my podcast, I used to turn up in people's offices with two microphones and sit in a meeting room and actually, and I'd record it like onto the laptop and take it away and, and now that's all moved on And I just think it's um, we need to as you say, be honest with ourselves. Ash. It's not just social media. Uh, I think about when uh, I was first doing training many years ago, we used to talk about the blue box of death which was in Microsoft Office. When you got an email, the blue box used to come up in the bottom right corner and telling people you can turn that off. So it's not a distraction. And you think now what Microsoft now has or any other providers, things like teams with teams chat coming up constantly in the corner and it's a similar kind of distraction and it's not good for us and we need to get into that. I'm really going to take away that idea of 23 minutes to get back into the flow of work because actually I think that's really important to give ourselves that ah, 30 minute gap where you just turn off all notifications and you get a solid piece of work done, um, and try again. And if you turn around to people and say turn off your notifications, they look at horror. What happens if my boss sends a message to me and I don't reply within one minute?

Speaker B: The thing is your boss wants you to perform but you have to communicate. If you are always on call and then suddenly you're not, but you haven't told anyone you then yeah, there's probably going to be an impact. Someone's going to be like, where's this person gone? This is not normal behavior for them. But if you say hey, I've got this, this uh, paper, this report to write, I've got this thing, I've got to block out four hours in order to just get it done. Um, if there's an emergency, call me on my number or if there's an emergency, like these are the tactics for handling it. There usually won't be an emergency. Right. We need to think about what is urgent and what is not as well these days. And I think when you're in a fight or flight state, everything's urgent, everything's at the top of the ah, uh, you know, we gotta get it done. And it's like that's not actually the case. But if you don't have the pauses and you don't ask the questions, then you're gonna behave as if everything's urgent and the cycle will just continue.

Speaker A: That just reminds me I've got a report to write, I need a couple of hours. It reminds me pre pandemic that used to be working from home on a Friday. I get all my stuff Done on a Friday. And uh, because I want to be away from the distraction of the office Monday to Thursday. And if you try and work from home now, you just, everything attacks you. There's no silence because you used to not have that communication and you could just sit there. So that is really interesting. You mentioned AI and it would be wrong of me to finish this podcast around the digital world without asking you a question around. What's your view on how AI will impact digital well being? Because it's such a hot topic at the moment.

Speaker B: Well, and it's a tool that will be both used for good and less good. Right? And that's the thing. It's, it's, it's a tool, but how we use it, we have, um, power and greed structures in the world that will exploit it and use it for its own gain. Uh, as far as, um, capitalism is the thing that will still be advertising and still competing for our attention. I research a lot the center for Humane Technology. If you have young people, they've got youth toolkits, they've got some of the worrying, um, kind of predictions as far as uh, AI and how it could impact us in a negative way. Um, I've heard people throw out these statements that AI is making us dumber. And I'm a little bit like, well, just like we used to have maps and we used to have to remember roads, you know, I have lost that part of my brain, right? Because I use sat nav and I use, you know, gps, whatever to find, uh, I don't have to think about it. And so once I do, I'm like, whoa, like landmarks, what are those? Right? Um, so sure, that part of my brain is, is not as active, but I have more creative energy. I don't have to think about how I'm going to get somewhere. I can figure it out as I'm on my way, right? Just boom, where's, get on the train, whatever. Um, but I have other space for creative endeavors, for writing a book, for doing these things, right? So we need to be careful of sweeping statements that are all or nothing because both it's a yes and situation. Right. And so again, what are our intentions when it comes to AI? In theory, it can make us much more efficient. It can take away some of the grunt work, as they say, and allow us to do more creative things. Yes, it's going to disrupt some certain jobs and we do need to be resilient and stay relevant and um, continue to develop our skills. And those are the people. Survival of the fittest. That are going to survive and thrive during this time. So I'm weirdly an optimist. Um, but what I mean by that is the pendulum sometimes need to swing to a worse place in order for us to do the things to make it better. And in the world of work right now, in many places it's swinging to that worst place. More burnout, meeting culture, stressed out. Is this the way we're supposed to work? And it's disrupting how we view our outputs and like, okay, are we measuring in the right way? Like everyone's frazzled, like we've got to figure this out. So I think we have this real hope with AI to completely disrupt how the world of work is going for our kids. Um, and yet we've got to look after our well being in the process because there's a lot we don't know.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think the rapid amount of change that we're now going to be going through, there's only so much change that the average human can take. And about thinking of the strategies, how do we with that as well is, is really interesting. It's been great talking to you. My final, final question, which I ask all my best appearances on the Tap Talks HR podcast. If you wanted our listeners to think about, reflect on, do differently, did something you wanted them to change after this podcast by listening, after listening to this conversation today, what would that be?

Speaker B: I think it's the mindset of experimenting. Like no matter if you're in a big corporate or a big machine, in order for you to thrive, you've got to experiment with what works for you in the world now. And so that could look like reading books that are outside of your algorithm influence, um, doing different types of movement or exercise, experimenting with different types of the micropause or digital detox, whatever it might be, we cannot use the habits that we've had that got us to this point to move us into the next, uh, position. So the people that are going to do their best are the ones that experiment with new ways and can be honest with themselves as far as where they're at, where they need to go and kind of evolve with the times.

Speaker A: Fantastic. And of course part of the experimentation is to go and find a book on digital wellbeing. So here's your chance for a 15 second plug. Where can people find out more about you and your work?

Speaker B: Thank you. Um, yeah, so my website's just my name, petrovalzabor.com we do training in organizations to help with some of this stuff and my books can be found there, but also on Amazon. So digital wellbeing and to begin with, you Petra.

Speaker A: It's been amazing having you on the podcast today. This is such an interesting topic for me, and I'm sure it is for most of our listeners as well. So thanks for coming on, taking the time out.

Speaker B: Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: No worries. Well, that's the end of the podcast for today. Make sure you follow our podcast, uh, on your favorite channel to hear about the latest episodes. You can always find out more about people in the workplace topics, including our own research@tapsolutions.com as always, thanks for listening and we'll be back soon with more experts and great insights. Bye for now.